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BESTSELLING author John Grisham credits the universal appeal of his legal thrillers to a formula he created to avoid “embarrassing” his devoutly religious mother.

The writer dubbed “The Voice of America” has sold more then 300 million books worldwide and found the secret of his success after his mother Wanda struggled with the violence, sex and swear words in his first novel A Time To Kill.

He says: “I grew up in a very strict Southern Baptist household where my two parents were always there.

The family had very modest means but we were always very loved and protected.

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I am not sure she has ever finished A Time To Kill because she could not get past the curse words in the opening chapter.

“I decided I did not want to write books that would embarrass my mother, so I wrote The Firm without the gratuitous violence and sex [of the first one].

“Once I finished it I realised I could give it to my 80-year-old mother or a 15-year-old kid and I sold a lot of books.”

To achieve this Grisham, 63, who was then a lawyer in Mississippi, took a brave stance against his agent, who wanted to spice up The Firm before sending it to publishers.

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HIT..... Tom Cruise and Steven Hill in The Firm (Image: Alamy)

He says: “When I finished The Firm and sent the manuscript off to my agent in New York he was not overly excited by it.

“He wanted to make lots of changes, a bunch of gratuitous violence and sex. I said, ‘No, I am not going to add stuff to the story, it is already really good’, so we butted heads and I would not change anything and he would not show it to publishers.

So a few months went by in the autumn of 1989 and in early 1990 he called and said the film rights had been sold, so I said, ‘What about the book rights?’ and he said, ‘That will come’, and two weeks later it was sold for more money than I had ever made as a lawyer.

“Then the UK rights were sold and we just sat back and watched it sell around the world, which was astonishing for me and my wife. “Then the movie came out in 1993 and within six months the movie of The Pelican Brief and then The Client, so it was a very exciting time for us.”

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Nine of Grisham’s 38 published novels have been adapted for Hollywood films, with The Chamber, A Painted House, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, Skipping Christmas, and A Time To Kill following the first three.

But Grisham, speaking as a special guest at Harrogate International Crime Writing Festival last month, admits to nearly quitting writing when A Time To Kill failed to sell after he had laboured on it for three years.

It was rejected by 28 publishers before securing a limited 5,000 copy original print run from an independent publisher.

He says: “When the first book came out in 1989 we could not give them away and I was discouraged.

I told my wife I would write a second book and if it does not sell then I am done with this stupid hobby and it will be back to suing people.

“The second book was The Firm, which changed everything. I started writing A Time To Kill in 1985. I’m not sure I could go back and write the opening chapter again in that book, which has the rape of a young girl in Mississippi and is based on a true story.

"I’ve always found it hard to read that chapter and I’m not sure I could write that story again.”

The father-of-two adds: “I didn’t have a clue when I started writing A Time To Kill. It was a mess, it was over 1,000 pages long and by the time I found a publisher my editor had cut it back by a third.

The Client’s Susan Sarandon and Brad Renfro (Image: Alamy)

"I thought, I am not going to waste so much time ever again, I am going to plan what I am going to write and I am going to write something more commercial.

“The Firm was always a working title and I wanted to come up with something really memorable, like To Kill A Mockingbird, but just could not.”

Grisham was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, as the second of five siblings to father John Ray, a construction worker and cotton farmer, and Wanda, a housewife.

The family moved and settled in Southaven, Mississippi, when he was four.

At 17, and still at school, his father got him his first job on a road crew during the summer holidays.

He says: “It was 100 degrees before the asphalt hit the road. I dug ditches as well. It made me want to go to college and avoid hard work for the rest of my life.

“I went to law school in Mississippi because I thought it was a good way to get a leg up. I was most definitely not looking to save the world, but I was intrigued by the law.

“I went back to my small town in Mississippi and there were no jobs. I did not want to work with the other lawyers there, so I opened up my own law firm and nearly starved to death for three years.

“I would sue anyone, it was a fun time. I’d never dreamed of writing, it was not a childhood dream, but I was in a court room during a trial and thought what would this look like through the eyes of a small town attorney and decided to write this.”

The Firm was a bestselling novel in 1991, with the film adaptation starring Tom Cruise making Grisham a household name two years later.

Twenty-eight years after starting to write aged 35 he says he still gets ideas for his thrillers from analysing real legal cases, by talking to his son-in-law, who is a practising lawyer, or reading about them in newspapers.

He has a strict working schedule, starting a new novel every January 1 and writing from 7am to 11am every day to finish it by July 1.

Grisham’s 39th novel The Reckoning is out on October 23 (Hodder & Stoughton, £20). To order (p&p free in the UK) visit expressbookshop.co.uk or call 01872 562310.